


Grief is a Many-Splintered Bastard of a Goddamn Thing

by Dart



Series: QB-E1 2020 Fest [7]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Gratuitous John Keats Reference, Q and Bond aren't together together but they are drawn together, gratuitous hamilton reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:36:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25298497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dart/pseuds/Dart
Summary: Rhadlamented not being able to clear Q’s schedule within earshot.Bond looks after Q.
Relationships: James Bond & Alec Trevelyan, James Bond & Q
Series: QB-E1 2020 Fest [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1822318
Comments: 15
Kudos: 40





	Grief is a Many-Splintered Bastard of a Goddamn Thing

**Author's Note:**

> For my collab prompt table: Linorien's "Picnic on the roof of MI6. Maybe under the stars." and ZephyrFox's "How about a card game between the denizens of MI6? Poker, or something." 
> 
> The 00Fest 2018 anon prompt "A Double-Oh Poker Night". Since I can only count two prompts, Linorien's and the 2018 prompt are the two I am counting for points.

Q has off days. Bond doesn’t know and he doesn’t ask. But he _knows._ Whatever it is— _was—_ can’t be helped, not anymore. It isn’t an overt grief. But in place of banter, there’s a “Sorry, Bond, not (feeling it) today.” It’s unspoken, but the clearest words usually are. The tea’s not Earl Grey, and the amount of milk is appalling.

Today it’s more than a slight prickle in passing.

It’s there. Lying in wait, as settled as magma. The way you can tease out the shape of something by what's missing. Or at least its shadow.

Q's quieter. More removed, somewhere. Elsewhere. (Of course) The work never falters. The Branch still sings, but the entire point, the foundation, the bottom’s gone out of it. 

No one else seems to notice. 

_Well._

All the 00s in town are in orbit. He saw Scarlett slip into a vent two hours ago. Someone won’t be making it to their two o’clock. And he knows for a fact Alec has already started one fire today. 

R _had_ lamented not being able to clear Q’s schedule within earshot. 

* * *

“Time to go, Q,” Bond says. 

“I don’t want to go home, 007.”

“We’re not leaving the building. Come.” And Bond holds out his hand. 

Bond leaves Q to tip against the smudged metal of the elevator wall in silence. He can't imagine even Q's ridiculous mop provides much cushion for his temple. It’s not an awkward silence. It is deeply tired. A pause.

{}

They step out onto the roof and Q sees the tartan check picnic rug, the enormous hamper, and balks.

“The hell?”

“Come sit. You need fresh air.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You worried a scone into crumbs for breakfast and frowned at a sandwich for lunch.” 

“I can’t eat, Bond.” 

“It’s not food, Q. It’s soup. Come.”

Q gives up and sits or rather half collapses where his strings are cut. Bond gracefully settles so their upper arms are touching. Just there. The slightest connection, a wisp of a tether. A warm solid strength, at hand, but tucked away. Ready, yet unobtrusive. 

They watch the (infrequent) late sunlight play off metal cladding, sheets of glass, the Thames, but mostly there's just clouds. 

{}

The light recedes from the world.

{}

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Q (finally) says. 

“I’m not asking.”

{}

Bond opens the hamper and takes out a thermos, pours them each a blue-striped cup of soup. 

Q looks down at his in consternation. 

“It’s potato,” Bond says.

“Are you sure they could fit a potato in there with all that bacon and cheese?”

“It’s from the new place, next to your gelato fix.”

“ _Fucking Americans,”_ Q says with the slightest bit of humor. 

“I wouldn’t call their menu subtle,” Bond says. 

“Coming from the least subtle person I know, is that actually high praise?”

Bond holds out a brown paper sack that’s been folded open. 

“I don’t want bread, Bond. I’m not hungry.”

“It’s not bread, Q. It’s the spoon.”

Q grumbles, but dips some bread into his cup. And pulls it out and looks at it. 

“What's wrong with leek and potato?” Q asks.

“They don’t know what a leek is?”

Q eats the soup and more bread than Bond expected. A bit of warmth. The slight press of their arms.

{}

The sky darkens. 

{}

“You’ve been hovering all day,” Q says, “Was your spidey sense acting up?”

James snorts. 

"The one time you can't be bothered to fuck off." Q throws bread at him.

Bond shrugs. He doesn’t brush off the crumbs.

{}

Bond taps out two cigarettes. 

“I don’t smoke,” Q says. 

Bond lights both and hands one over. 

They smoke what's left of the pack.

{}

The stars come out, but they can't see them. Even in the dark, they are surrounded by too much (of the wrong) light, and the clouds weigh heavy. Those dim lights they might navigate by (are blocked out), here, in London. 

Bond thinks about the distances to dark skies, he calculates. 

{}

Bond checks his watch. 

“Expecting someone?” Q asks. He seems perturbed at the thought. 

“Alec offered to set off fireworks and Scarlett said she would skin him for giving you more work. Just making sure we’re in the clear.”

{}

It’s gone dark. A seeping chill settles. _Sinks_.

{}

There's no stars and there's no fireworks, but this isn't completely unbearable. Fitting. Fog obscuring what you'd rather _see_.

“Come on,” James says, then adds, “We’re not leaving the building.” 

* * *

Q leans his upper body, the back of his head against the elevator wall this time. Normally his face would seek cool metal, but he can’t be arsed, and not only because of the grossness.

He still feels the bone deep weariness, but he can also feel his bones, no longer just that strange terrible liquid feeling of being adjacent. He is…no longer entirely removed. Only mostly.

He’s still an ache. But (now) he’s an ache inhabiting a body. He thunks his head against the metal. He's an ache inhabiting a body with a head that aches. _Bond's hand shoots out, intercepts._ He's an ache inhabiting a body with a head that aches which is now cushioned from further ache by the deadliest hand. It’s gentle, that deadliest hand. _Funny that._

He didn’t want to eat, but after the fact, he feels it’s better to have eaten than not. He doesn't feel like he's going to throw up, so that's something.

He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to be anywhere. But if Bond wants to be his handler tonight, then fine. He trusts him. The man _can_ dodge Psych.

_Literal handler._ One hand’s his pillow. The other hand…is rubbing his wrist. Q looks down. James Bond is actually checking his pulse on the not very sly sly. Q wishes he could control his pulse, just shut it off in this moment. Just to be a little shite. _Ha._ He wants to laugh just a little because having that thought is a good sign, never mind people would focus on the no heartbeat part. His dark humor and orneriness is still there. That’s good. He keeps it to himself.

{}

They go down and down. Sink beneath the level where most of the rest of the city is standing.

{}

“Somehow I doubt you’re returning me to my office,” Q says.

“No, not tonight.”

* * *

Bond lets them into Q Branch. 

Q gives a ghost of a glower, but the vague impulse is there. The muscle memory of _this is a thing that’s been done. Will be done again. At some point._ It's all still in there somewhere. He just can't reach through this. Not today.

“Hush. We've got holy dispensation from R," Bond says.

"For what?!" Q asks, then "We?? _"_

"Overnight supplemental training."

"If this is your weekly poker game..."

Bond snorts. "This is our semiannual 00 tournament. We're not messing around."

"How's that different than the weekly?"

"It's high stakes poker where we try to kill each other and cheat and try to kill each other."

Q gives him a _look_.

"Have you ever seen me shoot darts at Tanner or send him into cardiac arrest?"

Q crosses his arms and says, "If you kill each other, I'm not doing the paperwork."

"Fair."

{}

"Let me guess. You picked a V2Fab lab so you can smoke," Q says.

"Simulation of field conditions is important, Q." Then he asks, "Why is it called a V2Fab lab?"

"Ventilated to fuck and back."

Bond snorts.

{}

Bond lets them into the lab.

Q eyes the leather couches and oval baize-covered table and says, "Someone's been requisitioning furniture."

"Wanted to nick M's drinks trolley," Trevelyan grumbles from his club chair.

Scarlet nods from the far couch. Bond motions for Q to sit beside him on the near one. Q does. There's an AED and a good sized med kit toward the far end of the table.

Q thinks the poker game is a bother in the making, but it's likely less bad than anywhere else he might think to go.

Bond gets up to retrieve a bottle and two glasses. And when he retakes his seat, their thighs are touching.

Q drifts.

He doesn't feel better. But he doesn’t have to go home to his empty flat. And he doesn’t have to spend the night on the futon in his office. He doesn’t have to talk. But there’s the low reassuring buzz of whisky-warmed voices. 

"Why are you drinking whisky?" Q asks.

"Caller's choice," Trevelyan grumbles. He makes a face as if he doesn't willingly drink any available liquor. Q's seen him down a bottle of peach schnapps. "Jameska called it."

Q's not complaining. He likes the smell of whisky. He and Bond had spent hours talking about whisky over the private comms one night. In the wee hours, Q had said—.

Q's hand shoots out and smacks Bond's chest. “Using my private comms chatter against me!"

And then the _fucker_ leans over and _breathes_ on him.

"I like whisky. So I picked whisky."

And those ridiculous blue eyes _twinkle._ The nerve.

Q scoots to the far end of the couch and says, " _Whatever_." Then he sticks his feet in Bond's lap. "You owe me a foot massage for that."

Bond shrugs and deals the cards one-handed. With the other, he rubs Q's feet.

Q tips back and settles on the couch. Bond's strong sure fingers rubbing his left sole. Q turns toward the back of the couch, and smooshes his face against the leather. It's a sort of soothing. As much as he can stand.

{}

They're up to a quarter of a million, and Scarlett has thrown seven knives when Q half sits up and leans against Bond. If anyone attempted a poisoning, he missed it. Bond offers his sandwich to Q. Q looks down his nose and then turns it up. Bond tries handing him a glass of whisky, which Q takes.

Scarlett makes a gimme gesture to Bond. He shrugs and hands over the sandwich. She whips out yet another knife and cuts off the crusts and then cuts it into wide strips and then hands the plate back. He sets it back down on his lap and picks up one of the wide strips. She gives him an exasperated, but slight _no_ shake of her head. Bond eats the strip himself and they start the new round. This time they switch to speaking in Portuguese.

With absolutely no stealth whatsoever, Bond takes to trying to lure Q into eating some of his sandwich. Scarlett facepalms which makes Q laugh which has him inhaling a bit deeply and well, that sandwich actually smells kind of...good. He nudges Bond and Bond feeds him a strip which wasn't what Q was going for, but he eats it.

Chicken. Fried chicken. Cold fried chicken? It's...kind of nice. 

He floats along being fed intermittent strips of sandwich and nursing his whisky until Trevelyan throws a bag of crisps which hits him in the _head._ But as they are Seabrooks, he'll allow it. Mostly.

Q gives Scarlett a pointed look.

She shrugs and says, "I'm out of knives."

James laughs and says, "That we know about." 

{}

Q drifts and drifts.

{}

A broad shoulder just two layers of cloth away. That distance is bearable. Solid warm strength is adjacent. If needed. (Any closer would surely be unbearable.) Is it unlike a gun tucked into a holster? (Bond is close and at the ready. Steady but unneeded. Just there.) There’s nothing good about this day. But this strange comfort. (Is a balm.) Not magic. Not curing. An easing. A soothing. He’ll take it. 

It doesn’t fix anything. (It can’t. It won’t.) It doesn’t need to.

He wonders if smooshing his face against Bond's side would be a kind of soothing, like the back of the leather couch.

He drinks his whisky and then some.

{}

Q hears Alec slump out of his chair onto the floor, and looks up at James.

"Dart in the neck," James explains.

"Oh," Q says, then asks, "What's wrong with Scarlett?"

"Alec caught her in the left arm first, so it'll be numb for a good twenty minutes. But she has to keep playing without letting it show. How could you tell?"

"She gave me a reassuring smile."

James laughs.

Q thumps his arm. "It gave me the willies!"

You've been talking to Felix again," James says.

{}

“What else have you got in that hamper?” Q asks.

"Feeling peckish?"

"More bored than hungry," Q mutters.

James nudges his arm.

Q looks over to James and admits, "Sweet tooth."

James' smile is a small thing, but probably the warmest Q has ever seen on him.

"Go have a look."

Q starts rooting around in the hamper. He says, "I asked for leave. But my two o’clock was deemed too important to miss.”

Alec snorts. Q looks up and around and only slightly wobbles.

“And then the bastard didn’t show,” Q says.

This time James doesn't try to stifle his laugh.

Q gives a toothy grimace that he counts close enough to a smile, and says, “Have a biscuit, Scarlett.”

She smiles a little pleased smile, takes the biscuit, and says, "Shrewsbury Cake. My favorite."

James says, "Dig a little deeper, Q."

Q roots around some more and then makes a noise of surprised triumph and holds up bags of peanut brittle and fudge. 

" _Fucking Americans._ Riding in at the 11th hour to save the day," Q says, "I love them so much I could marry them sometimes. And then divorce them and marry them again. Because mostly I hate them and love to hate them, but also love them." He grins at the bags and says, "Felix hasn't sent me peanut brittle in _ages."_

{}

It's probably the whiskey.

{}

The 00s play more poker. No one dies.

{}

It's gone four.

James was drugged unconscious for 40 minutes. Q still isn't sure who got him. Q took advantage and rearranged him for better use as a pillow. A warm pillow that smells quite nice. Scarlett retrieved and used all of her knives again. Well, that they knew of. James came to and they dealt him in. They have moved into dialects even Q can’t readily place. Alec pulled off some sort of magnificent cheat that Q missed because he was drifting while smooshing his face against James' chest. It was different than the back of the leather couch, but he figures he probably needs more data.

Q gets up. Maybe he could go for a biscuit. He rifles through the packages and boxes until finally he looks up from the hamper, bereft, and proclaims, “The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!”

Scarlett slams down her cards and sings, “Sit DOWN, John! You fat motherfucker!!”

Q grumbles, “Can't believe you used my favorite line against me. I'm still up thirty points.”

Alec looks at James and says, "You’re only supposed to slip Q the _good_ drugs, Jameska.”

Scarlett pumps her fist and says, “I’ve been waiting _months_ for that to line up.”

"If the words 'throwaway', 'my', and 'shot' leave your mouth, I will shoot you," Q threatens.

"You will not," Scarlett says.

"I'll have James shoot you,” Q amends.

Scarlett considers James. " _James_ could try." 

Alec is looking to James, still confused.

"That was John Keats," James says to Alec. Then amends, "Well, 'The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!' I don't know what all the rest of that was about."

Q says, "First, you are reciting Keats to me when...I'm not like this. And second, you heathens are being introduced to Hamilton. The _musical_ , you mountain trolls." And then Q does wobble. "But not today. Being vertical is no longer an option."

He slumps on the couch. James coaxes him to lie mostly stretched out, his head pillowed once again on James' thigh. James settles his jacket over Q's shoulders. Alec casts a fleece blanket over his legs.

James runs his fingers through Q's curls and says, "Sleep."

{}

James and Alec and Scarlett play on. No one dies, not even a little.

{}

Whatever they have, (or don’t have), tonight is separate. Q can lay his head on James' shoulder, could flop a leg or both over his frankly ridiculous thighs, can keep using one of those hard-to-believe-because-honestly thighs as a pillow and sleep so soundly he drools on it. And then think _ha, at least it's not bleeding on it._ Then fall back to sleep (without a care). Someone will wake him if he's needed.

Some sort of safe non-existent other. Is this timespace. 

He can be soft, go translucent, not fill in the missing pieces to appear intact. (He can drop the optical illusion that makes him appear whole in all times at all places.) ((He can.)) (((He does.)))

{}

The night passes.

He makes it through the night. 

Somewhere up above, where he can’t see

Light eases back into the world. 

**Author's Note:**

> They were perfectly nice prompts. But grief is a stealthy bastard and HERE WE ARE.


End file.
